


The Attentive Correspondent

by radondoran



Category: Wild Wild West (TV)
Genre: Correspondence, Fluff, Gen, I Reject Canon's Depiction of Nineteenth-Century Documents and Substitute My Own
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-04
Updated: 2019-07-04
Packaged: 2020-06-03 17:49:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 799
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19469026
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/radondoran/pseuds/radondoran
Summary: Of course they exchange letters while Artie's away.





	The Attentive Correspondent

The Service is expeditious about forwarding Jim's mail, which is nice because Artie likes to write almost as much as he likes to talk. He can't say anything about the assignment itself, of course, but his accounts of Washington social life could rival Thackeray. As always he knows every bit of gossip about all the leading personalities, and he takes care to keep Jim abreast of the fashions in men's and ladies' clothes.

Not that it's all society news. Artie could go nowhere and see no one and still never be at a loss for words. He's just as voluble on architecture, literature, abstract mathematics, anything that catches his interest. Sometimes he'll just expound on his latest idea for some wild contraption he wants to build for Jim sometime.

The letters are seldom under four pages, even when he says he's just dashing off a line to keep Jim from worrying (as he's sure Jim needn't be reminded people tend to do, when other people don't write oftener); and every page is Artie through and through. He even gets theatrical with the headings, dating letters from locations like _Congressional Law Library, Under the Watchful Eyes of "Fame"_ and _Mme. Russell's Unimpeachably Respectable Eating-House, Marble Alley_. The salutation is always along the lines of _My dear James_ or _My dearest James_ or _James my boy_ or even _My dear, dear James_ and Jim cracks a smile every time because he can hear that facetious tone just as if the speaker were there beside him. Artie delights, too, in flowery closings— _Let me hear from you soon and you will greatly oblige, Yours affectionately, Artemus Gordon_ ; _Convey my warmest regards to Henrietta, Arabella and all other inquiring friends, and believe me to be, my dear James, as ever, Yours faithfully, Artemus Gordon_. Once he writes _Ever thine_ and crosses it out, apparently finding that a little excessive even for him; then he writes _Sincerely_ and marks that out, as too impersonal; and by that time he's running up against the bottom of the page anyway and he just puts _Yrs &c. A.G._

Jim goes with the conventional forms. _Dear Artie_ ; _Yours, Jim_. He can't really talk about work either—which is galling, because his partner ought to have been here to share those stories in the first place—and he doesn't have Artie's knack for eloquent discourse on, well, anything. But Artie wants him to write, so he tries to come up with something to say.

He tells his adventures with dance-hall girls. He tells about the new hotel going up in Cañon City. He tells about that two-headed lizard he saw. He copies down any good new charades or limericks he hears. He clips odd little stories from odd little papers. He dutifully answers Artie's inquiries: yes, he's well; yes, he's watering the plants on schedule; no, he's not running short of smoke bombs.

Jim's always been a poor correspondent. He knows his letters aren't very good, for all that writing them is a painstaking endeavor. It isn't that he's out of his depth intellectually; it isn't that he lacks the skill to compose a precise and well-ordered report. But language is Artie's especial talent, not his. Jim is a man of action. He feels clumsy, restrained to nothing but words. Anyway he can't write down a teasing smile, can't seal up a conspiratorial glance, can't mail off a companionable silence. Jim looks forward to the day when he can go back to letting Artie do most of the talking—because when they're together there's so much more than just what they _say_ to each other.

This most recent letter, the writer must have been badly out of spirits. Jim knows it before he reads a line. It's barely two-and-a-half pages, and the top of the first is desolate in its simplicity: just _Washington_ , and the date, and _Jim_.

Artie doesn't say, no doubt can't say, just what the matter is. He still doesn't know when he's coming back. That first sentence is as close as he gets to mentioning whatever setback must have arisen. The rest of the letter just goes on about how there's not a single interesting play in town and even if there was they haven't got anybody competent to act it, and the bureaucrats are insufferable and the dinners are unpalatable, and the roads are bad and the streets are crowded and the hotel is drafty and it's rained every day for a week. The closing is shorter than usual: _Up to my neck in politics and mud I remain_  
_Your_  
_Artie_

Jim is no great correspondent, and in his response he falls back once again upon conventional forms. _My dear Artie,_ he writes. _Yours of the 25th to hand. I miss you too._


End file.
